After the disappointing loss to Missouri, the Arizona State Sun Devils returned home to play Utah at Sun Devil Stadium last week. ASU came away with victory in convincing fashion by the score of 37-7. But there’s no time for celebrating because the team now must prepare for Cal on the road in California.

I’m predicting this game will be intense because Cal is coming off a loss to USC and they will be looking to get back into the win column. Both Cal and ASU are in the same position of establishing themselves in the pack 12 division. ASU is facing a tough part of their schedule because next week must travel to Colorado which is always a tough place to win. To add insult to injury, ASU must then face Oregon and UCLA at home.

This is definitely a tough stretch of the schedule and could easily make or break the season. It’s games like this that really determine where exactly coach Graham has this team. I am one that doesn’t get excited about ASU blowing out teams like an NAU. No disrespect to the Lumberjacks but games like the next four for ASU determines exactly how good this team is. We’ll see soon enough.

But I like what I’ve seen from ASU so far with their victory over Illinois. I was hoping for a victory over Missouri to cement exactly how much this team is improved. Overall the Sun Devils have shown promise and I like what Coach Graham is doing with the team. Obviously I wasn’t expecting a few to come out with an undefeated season because of all the drastic changes at ASU. But in watching the various interviews with coach Graham and some of the players I really do like what I see and hear from them.

They seem very grounded on exactly where they’re at in this transition. I’ve said this before but ASU football in the past tense to read their own press clippings and let that go to their heads. Then they come out and lay a giant egg against a team they should beat. So I like the humility that I see from coach Graham and the players and football today with all the trash talking and chest thumping going on it’s good to see players recognize their role and extend an honest opinion of who they are and where they’re going.

This to me is an excellent thing. Former coach Dennis Erickson seemed to always recruit players that you simply couldn’t keep their mouths shut. This inevitably was detrimental to the team and ultimately led to their demise.

I’m not out to see ASU collapse, I want to see them work hard and keep a level head on their shoulders because these are some of the foundational concepts that a successful team must have and I look forward to this becoming a yearly habit regardless of where ASU may be ranked. It’s time for ASU to become a consistent contender in the PAC 12.

We’ll see how we fare over the next four weeks.

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